“Cynical students of the American political system will note that the biggest recipient of campaign contributions from the munificent duo of Fannie and Freddie over the past 20 years was one Christopher Dodd, Democrat Chairman of the Senate’s Banking Committee.

Rather surprisingly, given that he has only been in the Senate for four of those years, the second biggest beneficiary was Barack Obama.”

Yeah. The real number is closer to 1.2 Trillion.

However, Tom Hartman made a great point yesterday:

want to see the mortgage crisis go away? Instead of bailing out the banks that made bad paper and ARM’s that adjusted beyond people’s ability to pay, make a government mandate that ALL mortgages automatically adjust to 5% fixed.

Many people would be able to afford their homes again, and this crisis would see itself out of the woods.

Let’s face facts here. When these banks allowed for loans beyond peoples means (preferably 2x income, no more than 3x income), they were setting off a time bomb. And by structuring these loans as ARM’s, they were lighting the fuse even faster.

So what if some bank loses SOME money. That’s a lot better than banks and investors losing everything.

I think the people/firms that bought these derivatives might suffer, but that is the point of a market.

I read a similar article this morning by a Harvard economist. You can find it on the Drudge Report.

Did anyone else read that the $700 billion is just a made up number? I think Paulson wants the right to spend money any way he wants. Bush should fire him.

Time says let the risk taking businesses fail.

However, I do blame Bush for pulling an FDR on us with the bailout. It would be even better to let it crash and right itself. But politics won’t allow that for that to happen. FDR made the depression last for another 9 years with his experiments and government intervention. The people have to trust the market. And that means the market has to earn the trust of the people. With the bailout, it only means gov intervention with more stifling regulation and the same thing over again in another 10 years.

It is quite a pathetic anti-conservative ploy, IMO. But since the liberal/dem mindset is built on soundbytes and misrepresentations of actual facts when dealing with the issues, this is not shocking at all.

The DEA seized all the US assets of drug dealers and should seize ALL the assests (What they can and is not in off shore accounts) of these criminals.

Franklin Raines:

In 2006, the OFHEO announced a suit against Raines in order to recover some or all of the $50 million in payments made to Raines based on the overstated earnings initially estimated to be $9 billion but have been announced as 6.3 billion.

Civil charges were filed against Raines and two other former executives by the OFHEO in which the OFHEO sought $110 million in penalties and $115 million in returned bonuses from the three accused. On April 18, 2008, the government announced a settlement with Raines together with J. Timothy Howard, Fannie’s former chief financial officer, and Leanne G. Spencer, Fannie’s former controller. The three executives agreed to pay fines totaling about $3 million, which will be paid by Fannie’s insurance policies. Raines also agreed to donate the proceeds from the sale of $1.8 million of his Fannie stock and to give up stock options. The stock options however have no value. Raines also gave up an estimated $5.3 million of “other benefits” said to be related to his pension and forgone bonuses.

An editorial in The Wall Street Journal called it a “paltry settlement” which allowed Raines and the other two executives to “keep the bulk of their riches.” In 2003 alone, Raines’s compensation was over $20 million.